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Mukesh Kumar S - PeerSpot reviewer
Openshift Administrator at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Jul 23, 2025
User-friendly platform has enabled quick support and efficient subscription management
Pros and Cons
  • "We are saving more costs because we are getting immediate support; if any issue arises, we do not have to wait for someone to respond and can get immediate quick responses from the support team."

    What is our primary use case?

    According to the price and if your use case is more worth saving, you can go with that. I can help determine what use case you want to pursue. If it is a small scale operation, you do not need to choose that option. If it is a huge business, you can definitely invest in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

    What is most valuable?

    The system is user-friendly and they have a cloud console for managing all the subscriptions you have purchased. From that perspective, it is very user-friendly to manage your subscription, and you can list out all the systems where you have installed this Linux, managing them from a single console.

    We are saving more costs because we are getting immediate support. If any issue arises, we do not have to wait for someone to respond. We can get immediate quick responses from the support team. We are saving lots of time and from the customer side, we have heard that they are achieving significant cost savings from this.

    What needs improvement?

    The main disadvantage is that you may find the price is too high.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have two years of experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and I am currently doing projects with it.

    Buyer's Guide
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    January 2026
    Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
    881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    How are customer service and support?

    I would rate the customer service nine out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is basically from Fedora. I worked with Fedora and CentOS. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Fedora, and CentOS are all from the same Linux family. I have also used Ubuntu.

    What about the implementation team?

    We are a service-based company delivering services. We provide subscriptions to customers, implement them, and then complete our work.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    You definitely need to consider the cost and determine if it is worth the investment. If your use case is larger and you need immediate solutions, then you should consider the cost. Technology-wise, it is very good and reliable.

    What other advice do I have?

    I am working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and am certified with the OpenShift platform, which is a Kubernetes platform. The company I currently work for operates both on-premise and in cloud environments.

    Regarding patching, if any issues arise or security issues such as hacking or vulnerability issues occur, they will first address it through engineering and provide patch support to customers as the first priority. After that, they release it to the open source part. This patching process makes it more secure.

    The immediate support and response time are good reasons to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). My overall rating for this solution is 9 out of 10.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Implementer
    Last updated: Jul 23, 2025
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    Karel Clijsters - PeerSpot reviewer
    System administrator at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Oct 30, 2024
    Extensible integration enhances open-source projects while addressing hypervisor compatibility
    Pros and Cons
    • "Automation makes compliance a lot easier."
    • "We have encountered compatibility issues with certain hypervisors, mainly with RHEL six hosts on the newer versions of FoxMox."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution primarily for simulation and CAD solutions. It serves as the main use for our operating systems.

    How has it helped my organization?

    The openness of the operating system makes auditing a lot easier, plus the tools for auditing make that a lot easier to maintain. 

    Automation makes compliance a lot easier. 

    The knowledge gained from using the system completely makes troubleshooting easier and increases the knowledge pool in the company.

    What is most valuable?

    The extendibility of the solution and its openness, along with its integration with all of our other open-source projects, are highly valuable. 

    We appreciate that it is one of the few enterprise-enabled Linux operating systems we can use. 

    It is very extensible, which aids as our needs change.

    What needs improvement?

    We have encountered compatibility issues with certain hypervisors, mainly with Red Hat Enterprise Linux six hosts on the newer versions of FoxMox.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for over ten years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution has performed really well for our business-critical applications and is very stable. I have no issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution is very extensible, adapting perfectly as our needs change.

    How are customer service and support?

    Customer support is very helpful and insightful. I would rate it very well, approximately an eight on a scale of one to ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    What was our ROI?

    The biggest return on investment is the knowledge gained by using the system. The access we have to the operating system increases user involvement and facilitates troubleshooting, thus expanding the company's knowledge pool.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing and licensing are reasonable.

    What other advice do I have?

    For non-business critical applications, a third-party Linux OS may suffice, however, for something running 24/7, it is advisable to go for stability and enterprise support.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Hybrid Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Other
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    January 2026
    Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
    881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Engineer III at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Oct 30, 2024
    Has significantly helped our company grow by enabling automation, allowing us to provide multiple services simultaneously
    Pros and Cons
    • "Ansible is one of my most-used tools, and I especially appreciate its automation capabilities."
    • "While Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers many valuable features, some, particularly the latest ones, are not immediately available until deployed on-premises."

    What is our primary use case?

    As a system administrator, I specialize in building infrastructure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with a focus on automation from initial design through to implementation.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux has significantly helped our company grow by enabling automation, allowing us to provide multiple services simultaneously and reduce repetitive tasks through the creation and sharing of solutions with other teams.

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux enabled us to centralize development.

    What is most valuable?

    Ansible is one of my most-used tools, and I especially appreciate its automation capabilities.

    What needs improvement?

    While Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers many valuable features, some, particularly the latest ones, are not immediately available until deployed on-premises. Additionally, although I need to become fully acquainted with its built-in security features, the dashboards could be enhanced to provide more comprehensive security insights.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ten years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux is stable. I've never had any problems with its stability.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is.

    How are customer service and support?

    The customer support and technical support are good. Normally, I can find my own solutions and if not, I can reach out to the vendor for assistance.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux eight out of ten.

    We face restrictions in accessing the latest features for various tools, including Elastic and Red Hat. For instance, we cannot utilize certain Elastic features because they are not publicly available. Similarly, with Red Hat, we must wait for the newest features to be released on-premises before we can access them. This limitation hinders our ability to leverage the most up-to-date technology.

    The key advantage of Red Hat Enterprise Linux over other open-source Linux distributions is its comprehensive support, which includes access to updates, security patches, and technical expertise.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Hybrid Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Microsoft Azure
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer2399202 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Providers coordination at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Jun 3, 2024
    The built-in features for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance are very important
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of stability and scalability."
    • "Though the product has many features, the tool's virtualization area has certain shortcomings that require improvement."

    What is our primary use case?

    I use the solution in my company mainly for the operation system of the core business applications.

    How has it helped my organization?

    My company has experienced benefits from the use of the product, especially considering the agility that the tool offers in terms of the time to market in different areas of business and because of its compatibility with most of the applications in the market.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features of the solution are the stability and scalability.

    I run Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on a hybrid cloud deployment, and it has impacted our company's operations, but I would say that it has been quite simple to implement, especially considering the security, which has been a considerable piece of the infrastructure.

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped centralize development in our company. The applications run with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and it became the standard for the operating system for the applications.

    My company uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for containerization projects with OpenShift. This use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has had an important impact on containerization, as it is a simple process. Owing to the simplicity, we always involve the solution's experts and get faster solutions.

    The built-in features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance are very important because our company is always aware of all these security issues that constantly happen.

    What needs improvement?

    Though the product has many features, the tool's virtualization area has certain shortcomings that require improvement. The product should also offer more containers and probably some financial services.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is a very stable solution.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It is a quite easily scalable solution.

    How are customer service and support?

    The technical support for the solution is very good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Before Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), my company used to use Windows. My company started to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) after we found that it offers more stability, sophistication, and security and serves as a standard for many products.

    How was the initial setup?

    The product's initial deployment phase was easy and quick.

    My company did follow some strategy to deploy the product, and we also had the support from the vendor.

    The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises models.

    What about the implementation team?

    My company sought the help of a system integrator during the implementation phase of the solution.

    What was our ROI?

    In terms of ROI, I see that the tool offers stability, performance, agility, and resilience.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    If I describe my experience with the product's price, I would say that we have to live with it for now.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    My company evaluated other Linux products, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), against Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

    What other advice do I have?

    I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux since it is a tool with more market experience and offers more documentation and support from the vendor, which is not easy to acquire when it comes to open-source software.

    Red Hat's portfolio has affected the total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape by around 10 to 20 percent.

    My company has the product in two data centers, but the production happens only in one. Mostly, my company uses the cloud services offered by Azure.

    I rate the tool a nine or ten out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Hybrid Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Microsoft Azure
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer2398638 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Stf Full Stack Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    May 21, 2024
    Helps with centralized development, infrastructure management, and compliance
    Pros and Cons
    • "In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I am a big fan of the command line."

      What is our primary use case?

      I utilize Ansible to harden Red Hat devices across a multitude of disconnected environments.

      How has it helped my organization?

      One benefit of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that a lot of backend applications run natively on Red Hat Enterprise Linux as opposed to a Windows-based option. We are a partner with Red Hat. It essentially allows us to do a lot of our infrastructure stand-up and development.

      It has enabled our team to centralize development. We have been able to centralize our automation, playbooks, and different collections we use within Ansible to create a centralized code base. We can use that to configure different types of systems with different requirements from different customers. Having a common platform across the entire enterprise has been very helpful.

      We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux very limitedly for containerization projects. It makes things very seamless. If we get a new developer, we can set up a brand new instance of a container for a dev environment or a test environment. It allows different developers to always have the same starting points with containers.

      In terms of security features for risk reduction, there are SELinux and FIPS. Also, when you build a Red Hat Enterprise Linux machine, you can stick it right out of the box. It is very helpful. It is very good, especially for programmers and users who do not know anything about cybersecurity. It takes you 85% to 90% of the way. It has been very helpful and good.

      The right commonality across the business or enterprise is always very hard to do, especially when different networks and different customers have different requirements. Being able to at least have continuity between those different environments has been helpful. If you have a system admin at a location and you put him or her at a different location, they at least can expect the same type of infrastructure.

      When it comes to compliance, it takes you 85% to 90% of the way there. Different networks require different things. Some cannot implement specific standards for whatever reasons, but being able to utilize and leverage Red Hat Ansible to configure that and make sure those changes are made across the entire network has been very helpful.

      Portability depends on the circumstances. Some things are more portable than others, such as containers. We utilize Ansible Core very extensively, but other things, such as AAP, are not necessarily as portable because some of our smaller environments do not have the bandwidth or the actual resources to support a big product like that.

      What is most valuable?

      In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I am a big fan of the command line. I like the data manipulation and different commands that we can use. I use Ansible extensively to configure systems.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for four years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It is very stable.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It is easily scalable with the solutions and the options they have.

      How are customer service and support?

      Their support is very good. They are very helpful. Some of them are more experienced in handling the niche problems that we have.

      I would rate their customer support a nine out of ten because there is always room for improvement, but it has always been very good.

      How would you rate customer service and support?

      Positive

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We have used Ubuntu and other Linux operating systems in the past. However, since I have been with the company, we have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux almost exclusively.

      How was the initial setup?

      The deployment model depends on the environment. Some are using VMs. Some use containers, and some use bare-metal installations. It depends on what a particular program needs. I support small environments that are on-prem.

      It is fairly straightforward to deploy different Red Hat boxes. I was just helping out a sysadmin the other day who had not done it before. It was super straightforward and super easy to deploy.

      What about the implementation team?

      We deploy it on our own. 

      What was our ROI?

      The return on investment for us and our team is specifically automation. We are able to invest time on the frontend to create different automation playbooks, and we are able to push that out to not only a singular network but also to multiple networks and multiple different configurations. It takes a little bit in the beginning, but there are huge time savings in the end.

      What other advice do I have?

      If a security colleague is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would be interested to understand what that colleague's objectives are and why they would consider something other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux. If it is something that fits their particular use case more, they can obviously go with that. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a standard solution for Linux. If any colleague wants to go for another solution, I have to understand why. I would have to understand what Red Hat Enterprise Linux is not able to provide. However, this has not happened to me.

      I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a full ten out of ten.

      Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
      PeerSpot user
      Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Top 20
      May 21, 2024
      Provides a reliable base to deploy applications and has a lot of features
      Pros and Cons
      • "The repository ecosystem is valuable."
      • "I would probably focus more on a rolling release schedule. Instead of a long-term operating support of ten years, I would just have one release and keep rolling it."

      What is our primary use case?

      We primarily use it for enterprise software, databases, and some custom applications.

      How has it helped my organization?

      We have a stable base to deploy applications. We need a minimal amount of effort to troubleshoot problems with the applications that are related to the OS.

      We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud, in the on-prem data center, and at the edge. We are also using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a hybrid cloud environment. It has had a positive impact. It is straightforward to deploy. There was no bottleneck.

      Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to centralize development. The stable base that each developer can rely on is great. The consistent ecosystem of the repository makes it easy to rely on.

      We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is quick to containerize, so when it started becoming mainstream, it was easier for us to sell to upper management to start doing more containerization.

      There has been a positive impact in terms of the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for keeping our organization agile. It is very portable. I do not have any issues with different ecosystems in relation to how Red Hat Enterprise Linux runs containers.

      Our cost of ownership is not high. They are not very expensive. We are never surprised.

      What is most valuable?

      The repository ecosystem is valuable. 

      What needs improvement?

      I would probably focus more on a rolling release schedule. Instead of a long-term operating support of ten years, I would just have one release and keep rolling it.

      In terms of security features, overall, it is lacking cohesion. There are a lot of different options, and it is hard to choose the ones that best fit our business needs without a lot of investigative work.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 11 years.

      What do I think about the stability of the solution?

      It is very stable.

      What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

      It is scalable.

      How are customer service and support?

      It takes a little bit to get to the true answer. I know there is a lot of triaging. I am sure we can improve on our end. When we open tickets, we can provide more information. There could be a way to get faster answers from Red Hat support, and we might not be providing the most upfront information needed for the ticket. I would rate their support a ten out of ten.

      How would you rate customer service and support?

      Positive

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      We were not using any other solution previously.

      I know of only one other player, and that is Ubuntu. There is also OpenSUSE, but I have not yet seen that personally in my career.

      How was the initial setup?

      We have cloud and on-prem deployments. We have the AWS cloud.

      On AWS, we had an EC2 instance. I clicked, and it was online. For the initial deployment, we just used the Amazon Web UI, and now, we use Ansible for deployment.

      What was our ROI?

      We have seen an ROI. It is fairly easy to deploy. We do not have too many issues with setting up a new environment in relation to the operating system. The bottlenecks are more related to the hardware or even setting up the cloud.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      When I came in, Red Hat Enterprise Linux was already being used. It has always been there.

      What other advice do I have?

      We have not yet fully leveraged Red Hat Insights. We are working on that. It might help with cohesion and security.

      I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is reliable for deploying applications. It has a lot of different features. I can find solutions to all my problems, and the industry support is there.

      Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
      PeerSpot user
      reviewer2298846 - PeerSpot reviewer
      Principal Architect at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Nov 5, 2023
      Enables users to roll out applications easily and provides excellent technical support
      Pros and Cons
      • "It is compatible with most Java microservices applications."
      • "The vendor keeps rolling out many packets, which complicates our job."

      What is our primary use case?

      We have a lot of Oracle databases, Tomcat, and Java microservices running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

      How has it helped my organization?

      A lot of our applications are like Java microservices. Deploying them on a Unix platform is so much easier. It's open-sourced and provides a lot of compatibility. It makes it easier for us to roll out applications. It is compatible with most Java microservices applications.

      What is most valuable?

      We like that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a vendor-supported product. When we have problems, we just call Red Hat Enterprise Linux for support. The product employs a lot of automation tools to manage its OS. We love using Red Hat Satellite. We have close to 5000 servers. Managing individual servers would be a nightmare.

      Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Satellite help us automate our repetitive tasks. Every flavor of Linux distribution has its own specialties. The product offers a lot of integration within the Red Hat products suite. We use Red Hat products mostly, so it works for us.

      What needs improvement?

      The vendor keeps rolling out many packets, which complicates our job. We keep patching our servers. CVEs come out all the time. However, having a solid and secure OS will make our life much easier.

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since 2004.

      How are customer service and support?

      I never had any problem with support. I didn't have any issues that I did not get a resolution for. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of time, but eventually, it gets resolved.

      How would you rate customer service and support?

      Positive

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      I was using AIX, which is also an IBM product. IBM bought Red Hat Enterprise Linux. AIX was more expensive and required IBM System p. Moving to Red Hat Enterprise Linux was much easier because it is a lot more compatible with the regular hardware like HP and Dell that we buy on the market.

      What was our ROI?

      I have seen an improvement in our deployment. When we have applications running on Windows, it takes longer to get them set up and provisioned, and the security is different compared to Red Hat.

      What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

      The pricing could be better. The tool is getting expensive. Before, we could license only the hypervisor where Red Hat Enterprise Linux is running. Now, if a customer has a 12-node hypervisor, Red Hat Enterprise Linux forces customers to license all 12, even though they use only six.

      Which other solutions did I evaluate?

      We evaluated SUSE. At that time, SUSE did not have good support. We needed good support worldwide.

      What other advice do I have?

      We use AWS and Microsoft Azure as our cloud providers. We don't use the off-the-shelf product that we get from the cloud. We build around it because we have a standard template. When we deploy our solution in the cloud, all the security features we need are already within the OS, as opposed to using the cloud OS and applying all the changes we need. It's easier to get our template to the cloud and use it.

      The licensing for the cloud environment is totally different than the on-premise one. We use the Virtual Datacenter license on-premises. I don't see any difference because Red Hat Enterprise Linux still supports it, whether on-premise or on the cloud.

      Red Hat Enterprise Linux knows its product. Whenever I have an issue, an engineer gets assigned to me. I can always escalate if needed. We're not using every host that we license. We ensure that we can fail over smoothly on every single hypervisor. It's fair to license them. We're not using it, but we're still paying for it. I do not like it, but it is a business cost.

      We migrate workloads to the cloud. I never upgrade an OS. I usually replace the old OS with a new OS and migrate the application. I use the OS versions 7, 8, and 9. The migration is pretty straightforward. AWS and Azure have a tool that we can use to integrate with our environment. It's a lift and shift. We grab the VM from our on-premise hypervisors and move it to the cloud.

      We use Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform mostly for patching and upgrading to the next revisions. We don't upgrade from one OS to another. We build on a new OS and get all the applications running there. Once the application is running, we move all the workload from the old OS to the new OS. There's no impact on the existing system.

      I don't do the day-to-day patching because we have a managed service. However, it does create interruption. When we do a patch, we have to reboot, especially when there's a kernel update. It causes an outage. I have used Red Hat Insights. It gives us insight into what's happening on every single Red Hat VM that we have. It tells us if it's behind or has some performance bottlenecks. It gives us visibility on the health of the whole OS.

      People who are looking into the product must get a good account manager. We must have a good account manager who we can always contact and who gives us all the updates that we need. They keep us in the loop on what is happening in the Red Hat world. We are satisfied with the product.

      Overall, I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

      If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

      Amazon Web Services (AWS)
      Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
      PeerSpot user
      Steven Crain - PeerSpot reviewer
      Director of Cloud Security at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
      Real User
      Nov 3, 2023
      Has secure defaults and nice integrations for security and vulnerability scanning
      Pros and Cons
      • "There are some nice integrations with scanning for vulnerabilities. That is the feature I have enjoyed the most because I am a security person, and that is my bread and butter."
      • "The only issue we have had with it is around the SELinux configuration because the way Ansible installs, it sticks the platform passwords in a flat file. We want that locked down more strongly than what is there currently with SELinux."

      What is our primary use case?

      We have Ansible deployed on our Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers. We use it to manage the security of our fleet of Ubuntu virtual machines.

      How has it helped my organization?

      Red Hat Enterprise Linux is way ahead of Ubuntu in terms of security and compliance. It is mainly the ecosystem of data science tools that our developers want that pushes us in that direction. As a security engineer, I have a lot more peace at night knowing that my Red Hat servers are doing a good job keeping our Ansible infrastructure safe because that has fingers into everything we do. It is pretty critical.

      Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not affected our system's uptime in any particularly noticeable way.

      Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not enabled us to achieve security standards certification because we do not have any yet. We will have them hopefully in the future.

      What is most valuable?

      There are some nice integrations with scanning for vulnerabilities. That is the feature I have enjoyed the most because I am a security person, and that is my bread and butter.

      Ansible has certainly been a game-changer. It is a lot easier to keep a whole bunch of virtual machines consistent with each other and make a change consistently across all of them. We use them for data science activities. Our data scientists are constantly trying out new packages and downloading new tools. We have to enable them to have root access on their machines but also need to ensure that they are not doing anything stupid at the same time. There are competitors to Ansible, but we are a big Python shop, so it is a very comfortable environment for us.

      What needs improvement?

      The only issue we have had with it is around the SELinux configuration because the way Ansible installs, it sticks the platform passwords in a flat file. We want that locked down more strongly than what is there currently with SELinux. 

      For how long have I used the solution?

      I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for two years.

      How are customer service and support?

      I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

      How would you rate customer service and support?

      Positive

      Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

      Primarily, we have used Ubuntu. We have had some of our use cases on CentOS, and then, of course, our workstations are all Windows, but I wish they were not.

      We chose Ansible, and that chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for us.

      How was the initial setup?

      We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud. We have Azure because it is the corporate standard. We do not have any concerns about using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud. Obviously, everything in the cloud is more exposed than everything on-prem, but it has got good, sensible, and secure defaults built in, so there are no concerns there.

      In terms of Red Hat Enterprise Linux upgrades, when we upgraded Ansible this fall, that pushed us from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. It should be a little easier from now on. Now that we have made the big jump from the older Ansible to AAP, we will probably be upgrading the systems on a quarterly basis.

      What was our ROI?

      We probably have not yet seen an ROI. We purchased it a couple of years ago, but we have not had the time to put it to as much use as we wanted to put it to. The cost is low, so it would not take very long to reach a return on investment.

      We have not made use of the Committed Spend.

      What other advice do I have?

      For its use case, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.

      Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
      PeerSpot user
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      Updated: January 2026
      Buyer's Guide
      Download our free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.